


Not Because (I’m What You Deserve)

by dawnperhaps



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Ritual Sex, Sexual Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:02:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnperhaps/pseuds/dawnperhaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Dean trapped in Purgatory, Sam is desperate.  Gabriel won’t resort to desperate measures, so Sam does it for him.  And love only goes so far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Because (I’m What You Deserve)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fypical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fypical/gifts).



> Written for Natalie’s birthday, and now also kind of her Christmas present. Sorry it took so long.
> 
> I did my best not to romanticize any of this. If you’re looking for something kinky, this isn’t it. This is just a really fucked up situation.

“But it is possible.”

That’s how the first conversation ends.

In retrospect, even Sam would agree that referring to the exchange of words between Sam and Gabriel as a “conversation” isn’t completely accurate.  Gabriel talks and Sam hears but doesn’t really listen, continuously repeating this mantra in response to every objection Gabriel brings up.  The Archangel is a surprisingly diligent voice of reason in face of Sam’s ever-growing desperation and, manic the way he is, Sam can’t really find it in himself to be grateful.  Sam wants to hear affirmations.  He wants to hear wild plans.

He wants Dean back.

Sam’s plan is simple, really.  With Hell mysteriously stripped from his mind, he can dedicate every synapse to research.  Buzzed on terror and blind rage and black coffee (two cups at a time, since Dean isn’t here to drink the one that Sam can’t seem to stop ordering for him), it doesn’t take him long before he darts away from the Judeo-Christian mythology and dives head first into the darker end of the spectrum.  God has never had an answer for him, not once.  But where angels and prayer have failed, Sam finds his solution in blood and sex.  Pagan rituals, dark as they may be, shine brightly on the pages of Sam’s books, little unexplored beacons of hope.

Gabriel’s plan isn’t really a plan at all.  Instead, he seems insistent on pouring his energy into preventing Sam from doing something idiotic.  Gabriel hasn’t been back for very long, but he followed Sam throughout nearly countless Tuesdays of Dean being killed and Sam thinks he should know better than to expect any sanity at this point.  This isn’t a angel-designed time loop.  Dean is trapped in Purgatory, possibly alive; Sam doesn’t get multiple chances to save him if he dies, and every minute that ticks by is another minute of heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping, nightmare-inducing _thought_.  Sam doesn’t have time for thought.  Rational thinking never got either of the Winchesters anywhere.  The world isn’t saved by the righteousness and brilliance of man.  It’s saved by the Winchesters, by desperate, last-ditch efforts and careless sacrifice.  Sam is quickly cruising past careless sacrifices and into murderous desperation.

“Yes, Sam,” Gabriel finally agrees, his voice tired and his sigh long-suffering.  He sounds different –  _so_  different – from the Archangel who once cracked jokes in the faces of half a dozen pagan gods, who spoke boldly to Satan himself, who once greeted Sam by clambering into the hunter’s lap and offering him a ‘ride.’  A month ago, Sam might have been concerned about that aching and painfully obvious exhaustion.  But today, Dean is trapped in Purgatory, and Gabriel isn’t giving him the answers he needs.  “It’s possible.”

Gabriel’s eyes beg Sam not to continue, but Sam’s eyes have already returned to scouring the pages of his book.

* * *

“No.”

That’s how the second conversation begins.

“I’ve read all about them,” Sam counters, holding up a dusty old book and flipping through its waterlogged pages haphazardly, displaying pictures of bloody knives and sunken altars.  “I know it’s possible.  I know you did it.”

“Oh, really?  Were you there?”

Sam wasn’t, of course, but he knows he’s right.  He can see it in the way Gabriel’s jaw tightens.  Those things he notices, the things that prove his point, the things that push him closer to a way to bring Dean home.

“It’s just a little… divine intervention.”

“It’s power,” Gabriel corrects, rolling his eyes.  Sam doesn’t see the way they drop to the floor afterward, haunted.  Those things he won’t see until later.  “It’s raw, unadulterated, NC-17-rated power.  Like shooting up heroin.  Only sparkly, magical heroin.”

“That’s what we  _need_.”

“No,” Gabriel counters.  “It’s not.  I can’t do that anymore, kiddo.  Pagan rituals aren’t by nature evil, really, but they can sure corrupt the heck out of an angel’s Grace.”  He shakes his head.  “I lost myself in that for a long time.  I accepted sacrifices – sex, blood, life, anything people were willing to give up.  And let me tell you, the interest you pay on those loans?  Not fun.”

Sam’s fists clench at his side, as if he could physically hold on to the idea, this surefire way to get his brother back.  His gaze remains pleading, though, not a trace of the anger or frustration that’s scorching the underside of his skin beneath the surface.  “One ritual.  That’s all I need.  Please.”

“Sam,” Gabriel begins.  His voice is so flippant and snide, but his shoulders are hunched defensively, traitorously revealing his nervousness.  He looks so human in that moment that Sam irrationally wonders if he’s still godly enough to complete the spell.  “If I asked you to start drinking demon blood mimosas again so I could yank Michael and Lucifer out of Hell, what would you say?”

“We aren’t talking about me,” Sam argues.

“We’re talking about whatever the hell I say we’re talking about,” Gabriel growls, shifting seamlessly back into the persona of one of Heaven’s most dangerous weapons.  “Find a different way.  Your ritual isn’t an option.”

Sam knows Gabriel – really, truly knows him, or at least he thinks so – so he doesn’t pause to consider the threat in those brilliant gold eyes before he crowds into Gabriel’s space, crossing over to the bed and pressing their knees together, the sharp angles of Sam’s body not quite fitting against the smaller body of the Archangel.  Every muscle in Gabriel’s vessel locks; Sam can see the sinew shifting beneath his skin.  He can feel it when he presses closer, lacing the fingers together, a gesture that’s almost tender.  They’ve touched more intimately than this.  Sam had been the one to drag Gabriel’s limp body into the motel room when the angel had mysteriously reappeared in Sam’s life, broken and bloody and barely alive.  Likewise, Gabriel once held Sam’s head in his lap through an entire night, stroking his hair and chasing away the flashbacks of Hell.  They’ve been skirting around this thing between them long before now, but now Gabriel looks guarded and Sam has another motive.  In his Dean-clouded mind, however, there is no difference, no reason for Gabriel to deny him this.

“You want me, don’t you?” Sam asks, honest confusion in his voice accompanied by something a little bit manipulative.  “You can read my thoughts.  I know you have been.  You know I want you, too.”

“What is this, a Nora Roberts book?” Gabriel snorts, although his eyes are filled with a longing that Sam willingly misinterprets as lust.  “You think you can seduce me?  Kiddo, I’ve been around the block.  I’ve had  _Aphrodite’s magic_  flowing through my veins.  Trust me when I say your doe eyes aren’t gonna do the trick.”

“But you do,” Sam insists.  “You do want me.”

Gabriel stares into his eyes like he’s looking for someone else.  “Not like that.”

* * *

The third conversation – the one that should have happened, the one that needed to happen, the one that won’t even occur to Sam until after everything is over and something lovely and delicate is strewn across the floor in barely recognizable pieces – never happens.

Sam doesn’t mention the spell for a week, flipping through the books Gabriel supplies him with while the Archangel flutters around to all his contacts – or the ones he’s comfortable visiting – searching for some way into Purgatory.  Gabriel checks in periodically and Sam watches as relief begins to creep into his expression.

The night it happens, Gabriel brings him another book, an old ancient looking thing that’s probably from a vault in some museum or long forgotten temple.  Sam takes it and sets it on the bedside table of the motel he’s been cooped up in, letting Gabriel explain its origin in his flippant, uninterested sort of way.

“I don’t know if it’s the solution, but it’s another step, I guess,” the Archangel says with a shrug.  When Sam doesn’t respond, his gaze locked on Gabriel’s lips, Gabriel raises an eyebrow at him and snaps a couple times in front of his nose.  “Hey.  Kid.  You still in there?”

Sam gives himself a decent amount of credit for managing to catch Gabriel by surprise, standing from his chair and crushing their lips together.  The kiss isn’t entirely false; it holds all the desperation he’s been holding in for the week, waiting for Gabriel to forget his plan.  The Archangel is stiff in his arms, however, and pulls away after a moment, licking his lips and eyeing Sam uncertainly.

“Sammy,” Gabriel says quietly, suddenly wearing the same expression he wore all those nights when Sam was hallucinating and whimpering on the floor, concerned and protective.  Sam doesn’t think about that, doesn’t let himself, and just kisses him again and pulls them backwards into the bed.  Gabriel follows him and Sam feels the moment Gabriel gives in to this form of comfort, the tension draining from his vessel and his grip tightening on Sam’s shoulders.  By the time Gabriel’s hips are grinding down against his, Sam’s entire body is thundering with adrenaline, memorized words on the tip of his tongue.

Gabriel divests them both with a snap of his fingers and Sam groans, flipping them over and pressing their hips together.  It feels so good and for a moment, Sam forgets the spell, shocked by the sight of Gabriel beneath him.  He’s imagined it before, but it’s different to see Gabriel and feel him.  It’s almost like his Grace is closer to the surface, his hazel eyes like molten gold as they stare up at Sam half-lidded.  There’s something like love in them and Sam loses himself for a moment, forgetting all the reasons he doesn’t deserve it, especially right now.

“Fuck.  Are you okay?” Gabriel asks, sounding like he’s giving it his all not to be distracted by the hardness pressing into his thigh.

Sam shakes his head to clear it, cursing himself in his mind.  “I just… I need-”

“Yeah, okay, I can see that,” Gabriel says, huffing out an disbelieving chuckle.  “Just… be okay.”

Sam doesn’t answer him and Gabriel doesn’t ask again.

“Sam,” the angels breathes, tipping his head back when Sam finally enters him, fast and deep.  Sam doesn’t expect to be kissed, but Gabriel pulls his head down and catches his lips, murmuring something that doesn’t sound like English against his mouth.  Sam groans and tries to speed them up, but Gabriel rocks up at a frustratingly slow pace.

“We have all night,” the angel reminds him quietly, but they don’t.  Not really.

Moonlight filters in through the window and Sam waits until it begins to move over their skin, casting the angel below him in a dull, not quite angelic glow.  It takes all his willpower not to be completely swallowed up by the sight of him and the feeling of him so tight around him.  He thinks of Dean instead of kissing him and when words finally leave his lips, they aren’t the ones he should be saying, the words he’s feeling.

“Við förum í þessa ómstríðu lag,” Sam recites, his mouth buried in Gabriel’s neck as he begins to lose his rhythm a bit.  He feels the moment Gabriel recognizes the words, the body beneath him no longer matching his thrust for thrust, the ardent hands wandering over his shoulders pulling away.  “Gefið af andlausum glories og falskur ást.”

“What?” Gabriel stutters, wearing the same expression he wore that day they trapped him in a circle of holy fire.  “What are you-”

Sam finishes the incantation and Gabriel’s eyes widen and white out.  Sam closes his eyes automatically, expecting something similar to the appearance of an angel’s true form – and suddenly his skin feels like it’s burning.  It starts as a tingling, but as it climbs down his limbs and burrows into his bones, it becomes an almost unbearable blaze.  It’s almost like an orgasm, but it’s too intense, and Sam wants to get away from it, except he can’t because he conquered it.  The room fills with a blinding light and a vicious sounding screech.  For the first time since he decided to carry through with this, Sam is terrified, not even certain he’s still in his body or just completely engulfed by angel Grace and the other strange, sharper thing that seems to be in the air.  Sam’s never felt pagan magic before, but it feels like oil, sliding into his pores and winding around his insides.  He squirms and writhes, his mouth open but his lungs empty of the oxygen needed to make the horrified noises that sound loud and clear in his mind.  That oily feeling lights up like a forest fire, only it’s all contained within Sam’s gut, and Sam’s scream joins Gabriel’s.  When the darkness comes, Sam welcomes it.

* * *

In the morning, Dean is back, and Gabriel is gone.

* * *

A month goes by.

There are no more conversations.

Sam spends the first couple of weeks being angry at Gabriel without really knowing why, just stewing in emotions that don’t really make any sense if he pauses to question them.  He runs off that resentment for a sold 15 days before he has to stop and reevaluate – this weird dedication to fairness he has only after the fact – and then Gabriel’s guilt in the situation isn’t so easily found.  And Sam is left alone with his own guilt, the crushing realization of what he did to another living thing – not a human, maybe, and not Dean, but still alive, maybe moreso as an angel – and the crippling knowledge that Gabriel isn’t coming back any time soon.

Dean avoids conversation almost as well as Gabriel, only Dean lives with Sam and travels with Sam and drives the car that Sam rides in, so Dean is at a slight disadvantage due to proximity.  He gives it his best, though, fixing his gaze onto a flickering television screen every night, beer in hand as he stares blankly.  Sam tries to respect that obvious plea for silence.  Purgatory was war and Dean doesn’t deal with feelings by talking them out, and he certainly doesn’t need Sam’s inner turmoil on top of his own.  But the absence of Gabriel is almost a bigger presence than his actual company, and Sam’s resolve cracks one night in between hunts.

“Could you have gotten out?” Sam asks, drawing Dean’s eyes away from the television.  His older brother’s beer moves away from his lips almost cautiously and his eyes are wary, almost warningly so, but the words have been clawing their way up Sam’s throat for days and he isn’t deterred.  “Could you have gotten out if I hadn’t done it?”

Dean’s expression changes then.  He stares at Sam, confused, as if he doesn’t recognize him, as if he’s staring once again at the kid who drank demon blood.  It seems so long ago that Sam almost doesn’t feel like that was him, like he and that child with his lips wrapped around Ruby’s bleeding wrist are the same person, except he’s painfully aware that they are.  And Dean’s stare burns the same way it always did.

Sam expects a crude remark, a shrug, or even some degrading comment about Gabriel, considering Dean and the Archangel have never been friendly.  Sam doesn’t know what happened in Purgatory – perhaps something significant occurred between Dean and Castiel, something that weakened Dean against the miserable and ever-growing humanity of angels – but he’s thrown off by the reply.

“Does it matter?”

It doesn’t.  Sam knows that, but it’s his turn to stare unseeing into the television screen, and Dean doesn’t comment further.

* * *

The problem isn’t that Gabriel is furious at him.  It certainly isn’t the first time.  Sam screws up more often than he doesn’t and Gabriel’s rage normally ranges from blind fury to uncomfortably intimate concern, so it isn’t that Sam isn’t unfamiliar with Gabriel’s discontentment being a direct result of his actions.  It’s just that Sam is used to seeing that anger instead of only feeling it in his gut every time he moves, every time he breathes.  If he thought the sight of Gabriel’s fury was bad, the pain of being so utterly wrong that the person you love can’t stand to be around you is ten times worse.

Not that he doesn’t deserve it.  Sometimes, when Dean’s asleep, he forces himself to think about it.  He goes through his actions over and over again and tries to make sense of it.  He can’t.  But he keeps trying because it hurts and it’s the only way he can punish himself.  He sits on the hood of the Impala while Dean snores in the backseat, chewing on his fingers and staring into the darkness of the surrounding woods.

“Shut up,” Gabriel snaps, and it takes a moment for Sam to realize that the voice is coming from beside him, not from his own subconscious.  But when Sam turns, Gabriel is there, sitting beside him and glaring at nothing.  “I can hear you thinking about me in Spain.  Shut  _up_.”

Sam does, lowering his eyes and swallowing convulsively.  Gabriel breathes a sigh of relief, and it’s the only sound that passes between them for a solid ten minutes.  Sam doesn’t know why Gabriel stays, but he’s certain that must mean something.

“Gabriel,” he tries after those minutes pass, his face contorted into an expression he knows must look miserable, reminiscent of the one that cracked Gabriel’s resolve during the cycle of endless Tuesdays.  It’s not a purposeful thing.  The last thing Sam wants is for Gabriel to think he’s trying to manipulate him.  He is, however, a little shocked to find that level of honest desperation in him, because Gabriel isn’t talking to him and maybe they were never together, but they were never apart exactly either.

Gabriel’s eyes flicker over to him, cold and dark, like the eyes of a raven.  Once, when Sam was a little drunk, he’d described Gabriel’s eyes with words like ‘butterscotch’ and ‘topaz,’ and the loss of that brightness only serves to accentuate the darkness Sam feels crawling around under his skin.  Or maybe it’s something like emptiness, hollowing out his bones and leaving him achy and brittle.

“I… aren’t we gonna talk about this?” Sam asks quietly.

The corner of Gabriel’s mouth turns up in a hard, unfeeling smirk, not unlike the one he wore when he was only a Trickster in Sam’s mind, and probably in his own mind as well.

“What an idea,” Gabriel muses, his voice so dead that it barely even sounds sarcastic.  It rips through Sam’s hope like a hot poker just the same.  “You Winchesters sure do know when to pick a time to chat.”

“I know,” Sam says.  “I know, I should have done a lot of things differently.  Way differently.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel says, that smirk still cemented to his face.  “Maybe.”

Sam shakes his head, floundering a little.  “What did you want me to say?”

“I don’t  _want_  you to say anything.  Definitely not something you don’t mean.”

“I’m sorry, and I mean that.  Honestly.  I just don’t think sorry is enough.”

“It’s not.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, feeling stupid immediately afterward.  “That it isn’t enough, I mean.”

“Yeah.  Me, too.”

Sam expects him to disappear after that, but he stays and Sam waits.  Eventually, the Archangel glances over at him and lets out a long-suffering sigh, as if Sam just demanded an explanation.

“I was never naïve enough to think that I was going to get some sort of relief from everything,” Gabriel admits, staring unseeingly into the rows of trees lining the highway.  “I screwed a lot of people.  In every sense of the word.  Not innocent people, of course, but.  The older you get, the more you realize most people are at least a little bit innocent.  In their own idiotic ways.”

Sam doesn’t think Gabriel’s talking about him.  He imagines the Archangel is looking into the past and seeing all the people he damaged with his habit of “settling scores.”  In another universe, one where Sam didn’t destroy one of the only things he had going for him, this might have been a conversation.  Sam could argue and yell, bark at Gabriel for being so hard on himself when the circumstances were so difficult, when Gabriel’s family was somewhere in the unreachable chasm above his head trying to rip each others’ throats out.  Sam could whisper and soothe, promise that they’ve both done wrong and learned from it, that they’ll be better for it, in the end, maybe.  Sam is almost certain that this universe exists somewhere, that Gabriel is content with his mirror image somewhere, but in this universe, Sam is the same monster he’s always been, and he doesn’t bother to push his thoughts about Gabriel’s righteousness onto him.  What does Sam know about righteousness, anyway?

“I was never going to come barreling back from the dead demanding some sort of reward for all the shit I’ve pulled,” Gabriel continues.  “And I knew when I met up with you boneheads again that there’d be no rest for the wicked.  I just thought…”  Gabriel pauses mid-sentence to look at Sam with those eyes of his, eyes that have seen every civilization that has risen and fallen on Earth, eyes that have seen galaxies Sam can’t even form in his mind, eyes that have looked at beings like Michael the Archangel and Lucifer the Morningstar as equals.  Those same eyes are looking at Sam like they’re desperately searching for something greater than all of that, somewhere in the shadowy corners of Sam’s tiny, contaminated soul.  Sam can’t bear to see his expression shift as the angel realizes he won’t find it, and he looks away first.

“I never thought I’d get redemption.  Heck,  _I_ don’t even think I deserve that,” the angel continues with a humorless huff.  Sam doesn’t see his expression crumble, but he can hear it in his voice.  “But I thought maybe.   _You_ … of all people, might understand the feeling you get when you jack yourself up on magic cocaine and then you come down and you’re just… I thought you’d get that and we…”

Gabriel seems to flutter in and out of the material sphere for a moment and then he’s gone, leaving Sam gasping for air he didn’t realize he wasn’t utilizing and gripping the side of the Impala hard enough that his skin begins to complain.  Dean reappears, looking half crazed with no Castiel in sight, and Sam wonders which of them will recover his angel first.  For Gabriel’s sake, he hopes it’s Dean.

* * *

The next time Gabriel appears – three weeks later – Sam is on the roof of the abandoned house they’ve camped out in for the night, and Sam barely has time to register his presence before he’s talking.

“I pushed you to that point once,” Gabriel says slowly, as if that makes perfect sense in their current context, like he’s discussing about Sam’s position on the edge of the roof and not his Dean-related insanity.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks.  He hates the misery in his own voice, like he has any right to be miserable and exhausted, but he is, he’s so utterly exhausted, barely sleeping now that he feels guilty wondering what Gabriel’s back might feel like pressed against his chest.  Those sorts of thoughts used to comfort him when he was lying on a questionably clean hotel mattress, responsibility and the ceiling seeming to lower and crush the life out of him, and he’d tip onto his side and wonder if Gabriel might be somewhere thinking about him, hanging heavy in the air like angels do and waiting for him to call, just like Castiel seems to do for Dean.

“When I killed Dean a hundred times over,” the archangel clarifies, harshly enough that Sam winces.  He doesn’t know if Gabriel trying to punish him with that reminder or himself.  “I did it because I knew that’s what it would take to push you over the edge.  I thought being ‘over the edge’ would make you realize how stupid you were both being, but.  Live and learn.”

“So what?” Sam asks, staring straight ahead so he doesn’t glare at Gabriel.

“So what what?”

“Why are you telling me this?  What does that have to do with anything?”

Gabriel looks surprised, as if the idea that his words should be relevant hadn’t even occurred to him.  It takes another beat for Sam to realize that he’s surprised that Sam is sort of half-shouting.

“I’m sorry, I – I don’t get it.  What you’re trying to say.”

“I’m saying that I knew the recipe for making you lose your head,” Gabriel explains.  “Cut out Dean from your life and you just… boy, you lose it.  I knew that.  I didn’t want to think about it because I wanted something else, but I knew.”

The look in Gabriel’s eyes hits Sam square between the eyes.  He recognizes the self-deprecation, but there’s something else there, too.  Something like forgiveness, or perhaps acceptance.  Resignation.

“Go.”

When Sam realizes he’s the one who said it, he knows why, but he also knows it isn’t what he wants.  But then again, when in his life has he ever gotten what he wants?  And, more importantly, when has he ever deserved he wants?

Gabriel looks confused and a little offended, but Sam just shakes his head and turns back to the sun sinking below the mountain, casting the entire scene in a dull orange glow.  Neither of them has earned that sort of sentimental mood lighting, but it makes it a little harder for Sam to tell him to leave.  The universe seems to think it’s proper moment for kissing and heartfelt confessions.  But Sam knows that time was three months ago.

“Don’t stay here,” Sam continues, exhaling heavily through his nose, his shoulders slumping forward to close himself off.  “Not because you think I’m all you deserve.”

Gabriel is quiet, but Sam can feel his eyes, searching Sam’s expression for signs of madness.  For the first time in a very long time, Sam feels perfectly sane.

“You don’t get to make these decisions,” Gabriel growls, and Sam glances over to find his eyes glowing with rage and pain, smoldering liquid gold that seems to be stirring as wildly as Sam’s insides.  Normally, Sam’s a little startled by angelic fury, but he doesn’t back down.  “You don’t get to use me and then tell me how I feel.”

“Gabriel-”

“Who do you think you’re talking to, Sam Winchester?”

“I think I would know that better than anyone,” Sam says, purposefully cruel with an expression to match.  “Don’t you think?”

Sam wishes, sometimes, that he could be the one to fly away, but he thinks he understands why he can’t.

* * *

Sam steps out of the shower a week later thinking of Gabriel, not for the first time, wondering where he is and what he’s doing.  He had it in his head for a while, before this happened, that angels weren’t really anywhere when they weren’t on Earth, that they just hung in the air like a comforting scent waiting to be needed or waiting to fight something that needed fighting.  Now his mind is clouded with all the places Gabriel could be, tangible and involved.  Maybe with other people.  Maybe with pagans.

Which is idiotic, because Sam shouldn’t be jealous.  He has no right to be jealous or even be  _anything_  when it comes Gabriel and all the other, better things he could be doing with his time.  He doesn’t even know if Gabriel still visits the pagan gods and goddesses he once called family, but he can’t stop his mind from filling with images of wine and revelry and that stupid smirk.

Dean and Castiel are arguing outside.  Or rather, Dean is arguing and Castiel is listening quietly, probably internalizing all of Dean’s projecting of problems onto him.  When the shouting dies down, Sam hears the Impala’s engine start up and the sound of gravel being kicked up against the side of the building, and Sam waits a few minutes before he decides that he probably won’t be hearing from either of them for the rest of the night.  He lies down in bed and stares at the ceiling, thinking about jerking off now that he has the room to himself.  He shoves his towel aside and wraps his hand around his cock, but every image that appears in his mind is something borrowed from the night he ruined everything, cast in a new light but still tainted somehow.  He gives up, feeling even more pathetic, and throws his arm over his face just as the flapping of wings stirs the air.  He half-expects to see Castiel, but he isn’t exactly shocked to see Gabriel either.

“Shut up,” the Archangel growls, just as he did that night on the Impala.

Sam returns his glare.  “Is there a reason you’re constantly listening in on my thoughts?”

Gabriel makes a vaguely defensive gesture.  “You’re kind of broadcasting.”

“I know I’m not,” Sam snaps, forgetting that he isn’t angry at Gabriel, that it’s the other way around.  “I asked Cas.  That thought broadcasting stuff is bullshit unless you’re purposefully listening in or I’m praying directly to you.”

Gabriel’s eyes flash with anger and he looks like he might incinerate Sam right there, in nothing but a towel and a scowl, but it dies quickly, that strangely human look coming back over his face, the look that’s uniquely Gabriel.

“It sounds a lot like that,” the angel admits uncomfortably.  “Like praying.”

“I… it does?”

He snorts and looks at Sam unkindly.  “Only you could be that much of a sap about sex.  And here I’d always heard that you were an animal in the sack.”

Sam almost protests that he is, sort of, before the idea makes him ill.  The idea that Gabriel doesn’t really know what he’s like in bed only adds to his nausea.

“I’m sorry,” he says pointlessly, collapsing back down and staring at the ceiling, hoping that Gabriel will be content with his attempts to stop thinking about him and vanish, like he always does.

When the angel in question suddenly appears on top of him instead, straddling his hips and hovering over Sam’s face with a frustrated expression, Sam is almost entirely certain that he’s about to be smote.  He’s never begged for his own life before, and he doesn’t intend to start now.  He thinks Gabriel would probably make it quick, anyway, but then again he doesn’t really have a reputation for quick deaths.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Gabriel tells him instead, quirking an eyebrow.  “Is that okay?”

Sam wonders if he’s trying to set an example.  He almost doesn’t manage to suck in enough air to answer, “Yeah.  Yeah, that’s okay.”

Sam still doesn’t believe it’s going to be a kiss and not a punch until Gabriel’s lips are pressed almost delicately against his own.  It’s chaste – exactly how Sam always imagined angels might kiss, although not Gabriel – and Sam hesitates for only a moment before reaching up to cup Gabriel’s cheek and pull him a little closer.  Gabriel makes a sort of relieved sound against his mouth and Sam deepens the kiss, taking it slow, using the time to memorize the feeling of Gabriel’s lips against his and Gabriel’s weight on top of him, all the things he missed out on the first time.  Gabriel’s probably kissed countless pagans, and then some, but Sam lets himself believe for a moment that it was never like this.  No one could have ever felt this good and then let it go.

When Sam’s hands begin to move down Gabriel’s back, his hips pressing up into the Archangel’s, Gabriel jerks a little in his arms, his content expression morphing into something much less content.

“I don’t-”

“Sorry,” Sam says immediately, backing off and moving his hands back up to Gabriel’s face.  His lips form the words against Gabriel’s as his fingers trace his cheekbones and card through his hair.  He’s a little stupid with relief and gratitude and pure affection.  “I like kissing.  Kissing’s good.”

“You’re a moron,” Gabriel tells him, but it sounds a lot like a declaration of love, and neither of them complains when Sam flips them over.

They stay tangled together even after they’re too tired to kiss, and then they talk.  The conversation stretches on into the night, and if Sam weren’t so dumbstruck, he’d probably shake apart in Gabriel’s loose embrace.  He wants to apologize, but it doesn’t seem like it would be enough.  And of course it wouldn’t be.

“I don’t want you to apologize,” Gabriel finally says, seemingly out of the blue.  Sam opens his mouth to protest, but Gabriel offers him a sheepish smile and bumps their noses together.  “Yeah, I was snooping that time.  But seriously.  Stop it.  You’re giving me headache.”

“I… used you,” Sam blurts out.

“Yeah.  You did,” Gabriel agrees, his smile a little dampened.  “But I did the same thing to you once.  To deal with my own family related issues.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Sam argues.  It feels strange to equate sex and murder and, fuck, only in his life would that even be a possible comparison.

“No, but if we’re going to build ourselves a golden scale of justice and throw all our baggage onto it, then we’re going to be here a while.”

“Gabriel-”

“Listen, this is a tale as old as time.  Literally.  Angels don’t exactly fall in love with humans without crazy consequences,” Gabriel says quietly, his eyes far off, and Sam wonders what he can see beyond the room, if there are dimensions and worlds all around him that Sam couldn’t even dream up, or if the past and future are right in front of him and his mortal eyes just can’t see them.  “The Nephilim were a great example of that.  When this kind of power mixes with human emotions, things just get… complicated.”

“That’s shit,” Sam argues, even though his heart isn’t it.  It’s hard to feel too passionately about pushing Gabriel away when his arms are already locked so tightly around him.  “That’s total shit.”

“Your life is total shit,” Gabriel points out.  “This is just Total Shit, Chapter 68.”

“Is that an actual book in the series?”

“I don’t know.  I stopped reading,” Gabriel admits, and laughs when Sam looks offended.  “I didn’t know if those Ghostbusters kids were going to be a reoccurring thing, but they got on my nerves.  Not easy reading, let me tell you.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t call my life easy reading,” Sam says, sobering a little.  He pauses before summoning the courage to add, “I doubt yours would be either.”

Gabriel doesn’t look offended.  He just nods and presses his forehead against Sam’s collarbone and sighs.

“I think we deserve each other,” he says quietly, after the moment passes, and Sam’s sure his face must look horrified, because Gabriel barks out a laugh when he looks up.  “Geez, Sam, don’t make it seem like such a bad thing.  My feelings aren’t exactly bulletproof at the moment.”

It’s the first time Sam has even considered the possibility that someone being stuck with him might not be a horrible thing, and to be honest, he isn’t considering it very heavily.  But Gabriel seems happy with the thought and Sam doesn’t dare deny it.

He changes the topic of the conversation, and then keeps it going until morning.


End file.
